A postmodern, satirical take on the Shakespeare classic of classics – one might not see that as the place for the art of dance and movement. Yet the creators of Mirvish Productions’ Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, presented at The Neptune Theatre (Halifax, Nova Scotia) and The CAA Theatre (Toronto, Ontario), might beg to differ.
Tom Stoppard’s play (1966), which peers into the offstage experience of two minor characters in Hamlet, is both highly comedic and deeply philosophical – often existential, even. Mirvish’s staging of the work (with Jeremy Webb at the helm as Director) employed movement, via the inspired work of Movement Director Angela Gasparetto, to texture and color both theatrical ends.
As a dance critic, I couldn’t help but be fascinated (hence, this essay here) – even as I found the whole show fully riveting, wholly engrossing. On that note, indeed, the production as a whole was an Exhibit A of successful artistic alchemy. One couldn't hope for better casting than Dominic Monaghan (Rosencrantz) and Billy Boyd (Guildenstern) as the leads– and the whole cast was phenomonal. The production design blew me away. Everything just came together beautifully.
To get a better idea of how movement in particular enhanced this play, let’s look at two different scenes and two separate trends within it.
Meeting “The Players” in song and movement
The play opens with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern flipping a coin – seemingly endlessly, continuing to get the same result of “heads”. It’s as if they’re doomed, a la Nietzsche, to experience the same events ad infinitum. In Mirvish’s production, something seemed to break them out – a group of “Players” singing and dancing. It freed them from a cycle of unpredictability and absurdity, into something tangible and concrete.
The “heads” or “tails” of their coin flip is a strict binary, one to which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern seem beholden. Yet the infinite creative possibilities within song and dance go far beyond binary. Through another lens, those forms of creation are some of the first that humans engaged in, or so anthropologists tell us.
What exactly the titular characters experience, in terms of consciousness and life or the afterlife, is abstract and open to varied valid interpretations. In this production, one could argue that song and dance, at least in part, catalyzed a new beginning – a kind of rebirth, even – for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
The rich, conversant embodiment of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
These two characters – at least in the Mirvish production, and through Monaghan and Boyd – were highly physical. To the curious and trained eye, that physicality can say a lot. When meeting Claudius and Gertrude, King and Queen of Denmark, they bowed with arms spread wide and one leg strengthened forward – a gesture of deference. These two are of the court, but still far below the King and Queen in its strict hierarchy.
Through Monaghan and Boyd’s stellar comedic timing, these bows also reinforced the bit that they don’t know their own names; they’re not sure which one of them is Rosencrantz and which one of them is Guildenstern. The take-charge, no-nonsense Guildenstern had a thoughtful, even somewhat regal bearing, while the more happy-go-lucky Rosencrantz had a more childlike, comedic presence.
At one point, Rosencrantz even gazed right at the audience, smiling big, bending knees and leaning forward – flipping the tables right around to make himself the audience. In some runs (I saw two), Monaghan even added a private dance party to one section – a joyful moment amidst the high level of drama and ambiguity at hand.
Another joyful sequence came through Rosencrantz and Guildenstern playing a kind of rhetorical faux tennis: changing position on an imagined court as tennis players do, scoring “luv” by rhetorical devices they use – or fail to use – correctly. As throughout the play, they brought a beautifully rhythmic quality to this section: as highly attuned to each beat as much as any accomplished dancer at the height of their performance prowess.
While attempting to block Hamlet from escaping with the slain Polonius, they bent knees deep, feet wide apart, and spread their arms straight to the side (ballet “second position”). While this moment was quite funny, there was also something deeper there. This shape, and the context in which they take it, pointed to the centrality of these characters in the play yet their simultaneous lack of control within it. That’s a contradiction amidst the larger atmosphere of contradiction and folly in which they’re embroiled.
Overall, through all of those many examples, embodiment seemed grounding and clarifying to them – even offering moments of levity when it seemed in short supply. “The Player”, the leader of the roving band of thespians they met, later says that “trust is the currency of living.” If nothing else, they could trust what their own bodies do in space, by their own will.
Truth through the “play within the play”
“The body never lies,” famously quipped modern dance pioneer Martha Graham. Raw truth comes through the thespian’s “play within a play”, portraying Claudius’ crime of fratricide and following dishonor of marrying his brother’s widow. It’s so spot-on that Claudius must jump up and stop it, before those viewing catch on – and maybe even throw him from power. He attempts to stop anyone from pointing out the big pink elephant in the room, what has become “rotten in the state of Denmark.”
In Mirvish’s production, movement portrayed this tale, fully and completely (not a word, and only very basic costume, contributed). The “play within in a play” was more like a modern dance concert, really. Swirling, circular movements evinced the deception and artifice that Claudius created. Linear motions embodied the raw brutality of what he did, and the sordid intensity of his ambition.
The truth told through kinetic means is hard to silence; it’s part of why activists regularly put their bodies on the line, and dance has so pointedly spoken to social and cultural issues through the centuries. Claudius can only maintain corrupting silence for so long.
Embodiment through design: characters and audience
The fantastic production design even underscored the play’s through-line of embodiment. The mobile bleachers (Set Design by Andrew Cull, assisted by Lucas Arab), which the ensemble moved all around the stage to serve different scenes, offered myriad opportunities for that. In the first scene, caught in the monotony of flipping a coin to always get heads, Rosencrantz lay prone on a step of the bleachers – utterly tired from such sheer tedium. In a spirit of contrasting action and agency, Guildenstern launched off a step and traveled centerstage.
Hiding behind the bleachers, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern maintained strategic secrecy. Standing higher or lower on the bleachers, they conveyed power dynamics resonating through various moments in the narrative. Towards the end of the play, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern traveling towards England via ship, ensemble members rocked the bleachers back and forth – creating the effect of the sea’s gentle sway.
Cradled by the ocean's waves, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were caught in another kind of monotony – at least a dependable and soothing kind this time – as the uncertainty of the moment lay heavy in the air. We in the audience, if our very bodies were absorbed and attuned, could feel the same. That was our vestibular sense (at least very potentially) engaged.
The production’s design choices similarly employed other senses, to further draw us into the emotional heart of the story. Smoke billlowed all throughout the theater at an earlier point in the narrative, pulling in the senses of smell and touch. While the titular characters were embroiled in the fog of court politics and heavy uncertainty, we audience members were literally ensconced in a hazy fog.
Obviously, it being a play, our auditory sense was engaged – yet certain sound design choices (from Sound Designer / Composer Deanna H. Choi, assisted by Ryan Wilcox) pulled that sense in even more. With the stage dark, echoing shouts from the main characters further cemented that sense of haziness. One could even argue that such echoing reflected how certain characters’ actions rippled out far beyond themselves. With audience members immersed enough, perhaps that affected circle even included us sitting in the house.
Isn’t that the point, really, with live art: to pull those who experience it in enough to have them thinking, remembering, and stepping forward with something new, something changed. As a dance/movement devotee and advocate, I’d argue that it starts with the body. With Mirvish Productions’ Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, it certainly did – to highly impactful, forever memorable effect.
My friend Lorin and I at the show!
All images courtesy of the author
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